Tag Archives: Obsidian Portal

Welcome to Sel-kai my young friend. It’s okay, you can look; I won’t judge. The Warbirds certainly are an impressive sight. Especially the first time. So, come to make your fortune have you? No better place to do it. Spend enough time here, work hard enough, and you might earn more than just that, you might come to earn The Praise of Old Men – August’s Campaign of the Month! Now, wipe that tourist’s look off your face, and follow me. I’ve got just the person you need to see, they call him Ancellus, the GameMaster.

I’m terrible at GMing followers when I’m running a game. One of the players in my last game acquired one around game nine, rolled up stats, described her, and figured out what role she would play in the party. The player did all the work for me. I ignored it. Completely forgot she existed and didn’t even write down her name. I had plenty of opportunities to incorporate the NPC into the story in some semi-meaningful way and I simply didn’t. My bad on that one, whatever-your-name-was.

This isn’t the first time I’ve failed at giving followers a fair shot – I’m guilty of many counts of allowing backpack familiars and henchmen that seem to phase in and out of existence as they are remembered. The sin is especially egregious, considering that in many game systems the player is spending some of their hard-earned XP or other resources to simply be allowed to have a friend! (Just like real life!) It bugs me that I’m so bad at NPC allies. So, I started examining why it was happening to search for solutions.

‘Tis a strange and awful thing to try and forget. To go about your life and hope that memories fade. The quiet, emptiness of night is the worst. When the chores of the day have gone, and you lie in bed with nothing but your thoughts. It’s difficult not to have Vecna come to mind, and what nearly was. Such is our hardship here, in the kingdom of Morwindl | Rising Tide – July’s Campaign of the Month! Though the darkness has fallen, other dangers loom. Gather your courage now friends, for we travel forth in search of Bortas, the GameMaster of this epic campaign!

My gamer friends and I have a kind of competition going, wherein we try to out-nerd each other with various gimmicks. It started with a pirate’s map burnt onto a piece of leather and eventually escalated to manila folder evidence bags containing NPC dossiers and a custom made USB drive full of world lore and digital game books! When it once again became my turn to run a game, I had to try to reaffirm my place in the game-geek hierarchy by creating some interesting props – and for bonus points: at least one per game session.

The challenge was threefold. First off, we meet weekly – only a handful of hours could be allocated to the creation of props. Secondly, I’m broke – I would have to rely on dollar store finds and my limited collection of office supplies. Thirdly, we were playing Star Wars Saga edition. Any time I could hand over a code cylinder or a vial of alien toxins rather than just describing them, I would try to do so.

“What does it mean to be human; a part of mankind?” I sometimes wonder about how much simpler a question that must have been for people before. Before we made the grand voyage of interstellar flight. Before we terraformed countless worlds, and allied ourselves with intelligent lifeforms from beyond the black. Before the genetic modifications, the implantations, the symbiotes. Before we began to twist who and what we were in exchange for more expedient settlement. Sometimes I think that we as a race are already gone, that humanity has reached The Last Parsec – December’s Campaign of the Month! If anyone can truly answer that question, it’s Maksim_Kotelnikov, the GM of this interstellar campaign. So come with me on a journey to to the stars and beyond!

The village of Hellespont needs you! Recent disappearances have prompted the Elder Council to seek out adventurers to investigate! Viable candidates are hereby invited to assemble at the River Bend Inn for consideration! Let you and your company’s tale be the next one written in The Gaelean Chronicles: Heroes 4 Hire – November’s Campaign of the Month! Sharpen your swords, ready your most potent magics, and prepare to test your mettle – DM_Mike awaits…